Malaysia Airlines
Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAB) ( ), (ڤنربڠن مليسيا برحد)formerly known as Malaysian Airline System Berhad''' (MAS; );' branded as' Malaysia Airlines''' is a major airline operating flights from Kuala Lumpur International Airport and from secondary hubs in Kota Kinabalu and Kuching to destinations throughout Asia, Oceania and Europe. Malaysia Airlines is the flag carrier of Malaysia and a member of the oneworld airline alliance. The company's headquarters are located at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. In August 2014, the Malaysian government's sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional—which then owned 69.37% of the airline—announced its intention to purchase remaining ownership from minority shareholders and de-list the airline from Malaysia's stock exchange, thereby renationalising the airline. Malaysia Airlines owns two subsidiary airlines: Firefly and MASwings. Firefly operates scheduled flights from its two home bases Penang International Airport and Subang International Airport. The airline focuses on tertiary cities. MASwings focuses on inter-Borneo flights. Malaysia Airlines has a freighter fleet operated by MASkargo, which manages freighter flights and aircraft cargo-hold capacity for all Malaysia Airlines' passenger flights. The airline began as Malayan Airways Limited and flew its first commercial flight in 1947. Malayan Airways was headquartered in Singapore. In 1966, the airline was renamed Malaysia Singapore Airlines (MSA), before its assets were divided in 1972 to form Singapore's flag carrier Singapore Airlines and Malaysian flag carrier Malaysian Airline System. In 1998, the airport was fully relocated from Subang to KLIA. Despite numerous awards from the aviation industry, being crowned 'The World's 5-Star Airline' by Skytrax multiple times (2009, 2012 and 2013), and recognition from the World Travel Awards as 'Asia's Leading Airline' (2010, 2011 and 2013), the airline struggled to cut costs to compete with new, low-cost carriers in the region since the early 2000s. In 2013, the airline initiated a turnaround plan after large losses beginning in 2011 and cut routes to prominent, but unprofitable, long-haul destinations, such as the Americas (Los Angeles and Buenos Aires) and South Africa. Malaysia Airlines also began an internal restructuring and intended to sell units such as engineering and pilot training. In 2014, Malaysia Airlines lost two aircraft—Flight 370 and Flight 17—less than five months apart, exacerbating the airline's financial troubles and leading to the renationalisation of the airline. Prior to 2014, MAS had one of the world's best safety records—just two fatal accidents in 68 years of operation, including the hijacking in 1977 of Flight 653 that resulted in 100 deaths. Malaysia Airlines CEO was changed from Ahmad Jauhari Yahya in 2014, to Christoph Mueller from 2014 to 2016, before going to Peter Bellew until August 2017. It was replaced by Izham Ismail, who was like Ong Kian Min from 2017 to present. Destinations Before the introduction of the Business Turnaround Plan in 2006, Malaysia Airlines operated 118 domestic routes within Malaysia and 114 international routes across six continents. Under the Business Turnaround Plan, numerous routes were axed and frequencies reduced. Among these routes are Manchester, Vienna, Fukuoka, Chengdu, Nagoya, Xi'an, Cairo, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Zürich. Malaysia Airlines became the first airline in Southeast Asia to fly to South Africa, following the demise of apartheid, and was the only airline in Southeast Asia that served South America via South Africa until 2012. Prior the MH17 and MH370's crashes, it had further suspended services to Cape Town, Rome, Dammam, Karachi, Surabaya, Johannesburg and Los Angeles. After the removal of the destinations such as Istanbul, Male, Amsterdam, Paris, Brisbane, Frankfurt, Kunming, Krabi and Kochi, London is the only one left for the European destination, particularly with the strong presence of Airbus A380 and the Heathrow Terminal 4. As of March 2017, Malaysia Airlines flies to 57 destinations across Southeast Asia, North and South Asia, the Middle East, Australia and Europe. Its primary hub is Kuala Lumpur International Airport. It has a particularly strong presence in the Southeast Asia region, which, together with its subsidiaries MASWings and Firefly, connects Kuala Lumpur to the most destinations in Borneo. Apart from that, the airline has a key role in the Kangaroo Route, on which the airline provides onward connecting flights from main European gateways to major Australian and New Zealand gateways via Kuala Lumpur, within 5 hours. Fleet Malaysia Airlines operates a fleet of Boeing 737 narrow-body aircraft and select types of Airbus wide-body aircraft. The Boeing 777-200ER, which are ill-fated, were retired by 2016. Malaysia Airlines signed a contract with Airbus to purchase six Airbus A380s in 2003. The airline expected to receive the first aircraft in 2007 but delivery was delayed due to manufacturing problems. On 3 October 2008, upon completion of the review of A380 program, the deliveries were pushed back to 2009. It had agreed on compensation and new schedule on deliveries was on 31 March 2008, consisting new overall plans for the airline with the deliveries to be made in 2011. However, Airbus postponed the delivery for the second time. The first Airbus A380 was delivered in June 2012. On 30 April 2015, it was announced that Malaysia Airlines wanted to seek or lease out all of the six Airbus A380s due to the ongoing financial crisis. It has been decided to keep the Airbus A380s in service. Malaysia Airlines began taking delivery of six Airbus A350-900s aircraft in 2017 and was the first operator to offer First Class. They were leased from Air Lease Corporation. Category:Airlines